The Super Bowl matchup has been set and several NFL teams have filled head coach openings, but the biggest topic of conversation within the league has been the reported news that Bill Belichick was snubbed by Pro Football Hall of Fame voters and won’t be a first-ballot inductee.
The all-time leader in Super Bowl wins as a head coach (six), playoff wins (31), and divisional championships (17), and holder of so many other records not going into the hall in his first year of eligibility has caused an uproar. The 2026 Hall of Fame class won’t officially be revealed until the NFL Honors Show on Feb. 5, so this is just a report as of now, but it has prompted the Hall of Fame itself to speak out.
Roughly 24 hours after news broke that Belichick was getting snubbed, the Hall of Fame issued a statement. While it didn’t mention Belichick, nor any of the Hall of Fame voters who didn’t cast a vote for the coach, it did vow to remove any voters who violated the hall’s bylaws.
“The Hall also respects the members of the Selection Committee when they follow the selection process bylaws. It is an honor to serve as a selector,” the Jan. 28 statement said in part.
“Each year, the Hall reviews the selection process and the composition of the 50-person Selection Committee. If it is determined that any member(s) violated the selection process bylaws, they understand action will be taken. That could include the possibility that such selector(s) would not remain a member of the committee moving forward.
“The selection of a new class is the most important duty the Hall of Fame oversees each year, and the integrity of that process cannot be in question.”
The Hall of Fame’s selection committee is made up of 50 members, which includes a media member from each of the 32 NFL team markets. There are also 17 at-large media members plus one representative of the Pro Football Writers of America. All members are required to consider a player, coach, or contributor’s candidacy based on football reasons. If anyone excluded Belichick from their ballot due to nonfootball reasons, they would be in violation of the bylaws.
Football reasons include the two major blemishes on Belichick’s coaching career: Spygate and Deflategate. Nonfootball reasons could be a voter’s dislike for the coach due to his relationship with the media, a personal vendetta, or something similar.
As a coach, Belichick is in a different category than players on the ballot, including Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, and Jason Witten as first-time eligibles. Belichick is in the coach, contributor, or senior group of five alongside his former boss and Patriots owner Robert Kraft, as well as three senior player nominees whose careers ended before 2000: quarterback Ken Anderson, running back Roger Craig, and defensive lineman L.C. Greenwood. Voters could cast votes for three of those five finalists, with 80 percent of the vote needed for induction. Thus, at least 11 of the 50 Hall of Fame voters felt Belichick wasn’t worthy of being a first-ballot Hall of Famer, for whatever reason.
Many people around the league have emphatically spoken out about Belichick reportedly being snubbed, including the player he’s most associated with, Tom Brady, who won six Super Bowl rings under Belichick during their 20 seasons together.
“He’s incredible. There’s no coach I'd rather play for. If I’m picking one coach to go out there to win a Super Bowl—give me one season—I’m taking Bill Belichick. So that’s enough said.”
If there’s any solace for Belichick, it’s that he joins the company of other all-time great coaches who also weren’t first-ballot Hall of Famers. That includes his mentor, Bill Parcells, as the two-time Super Bowl-winning coach had to wait until his fourth year of eligibility to get inducted. Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs, who each won three Super Bowl championships, also had to wait until their fourth year on the ballot to get the call from the hall.
Those waits pale in comparison with what the legendary John Madden had to endure. Madden owns the highest winning percentage of any coach in NFL history (minimum 100 games) and last coached in 1978. However, he had to wait nearly three decades before being enshrined in the Class of 2006.
A man who won two Super Bowls against Belichick will also reportedly have to wait another year at the very least. Former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who has a pair of Super Bowl rings via victories over Belichick’s New England Patriots, also apparently won’t be going into the hall this year. Manning is on his second year on the ballot.
